Word Schmord YKTTW Discussion

Stock Phrase (or rather, a Stock Phrase Template). A warning or advice for restraint is dismissed scornfully by repeating the word that represents the advice, then the same word with its beginning replaced with "schm". "Safety, schmafety!" "Rules, schmules!"

Examples:

Fraggle Rock used this in at least one episode. There was a whole string of examples until somebody said "Fraggles, schmaggles," which was apparently the most shocking thing any fraggle could ever say.

An episode of Scrubs had JD claiming he could rhyme anything, but did so by repeating whatever the last person said and invoking this trope. Leading to this punchline to a Brick Joke when he annoys Lavern earlier in a scene;

There's a Far Side cartoon with several characters saying some variant of the phrase: Neanderthals Schmeanderthals (mammoths), Indians Schmindians (Custer), Huns Schmuns (castle guards). The caption is History Schmistory.

In Zits, Connie reads an article about how the decision making part of the brain isn't fully mature until the early 20s. She then says "Science, schmience" as she decides to punish Jeremy.

Bugs Bunny short Ali Baba Bunny. After collecting a load of treasure, Daffy Duck gets a genie angry by cramming him back inside his lamp. Watch it here.

Genie: Dog! You have desecrated the Spirit of the Lamp! Prepare to take the consequences!

Daffy: Consequences schmonsequences... as long as I'm rich.

Genie: [reduces him to tiny size]

Another Merrie Melodies, Hobo Bobo, tells the story of Bobo the baby elephant, who didn't like his job in India - carry logs with his trunk. Eventually he joins a circus in the US where they had performing elephants playing baseball. The Narrator tells us "He is now the official batboy."

Batboy, shmatboy, I'm still carryin' logs!

The Venture Bros. episode "Hate Floats". One of the Monarch's henchmen has a closet full of toys that he proposes to use for the group to battle their way out of a bad situation. At one point he says "Toys, schmoys!"

Dale Gribble attempted to do this in one episode of King of the Hill, but he got tripped up trying to say "Mask, Schmask."

Replies: 24

Your reply:

Five hats means that five tropers think it is ready to publish.

You are saying that you think this draft is ready to be published. That means the description is not ambiguous,
it doesn't duplicate an existing trope, there are at least three examples, and the title makes sense.

Is that what you meant to do?

You are saying this draft has a ready-to-publish hat it does not deserve and you are taking it back.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy